Mad Shadows
by TomFoolery
Summary: Mad Eye Moody: a man with a sad nature forged by murder, death, and tragedy. This story is a chronicle of his descent into his own shadows, heartbreak, and unfairly lost love.


**Mad Shadows**

**Chapter One: Alice Longbottom**

He looked into the foggy mirror and brushed a hand over his sand-coloured hair. He looked terrible: night after night of insufficient sleep were wearing through in an expression of sheer exhaustion mingled with frustration and annoyance. For the last week he had poured over these reports, but still he could not find a connection.

"Um, Sir?"

"Uhn?" he mumbled, not bothering to look up from the piles of paper littering his desk to acknowledge the speaker standing shyly in his doorway.

"I was wondering Sir, may I borrow Hardy's report on the Fauler disappearance for a moment?"

"No."

"Well, er-"

"Is there anything else Longbottom?"

"No Sir."

Alastor watched the thin face of Frank Longbottom flush before he nervously turned and left him alone to continue fretting over his inability to spot a pattern in a string of recent disappearances.

"_Moody!_" a woman yelled threateningly from down the hallway.

"That dratted Alice Longbottom." he snarled quietly, leaning over his paperwork as if he was about to be forced to defend it from a Mongolian invasion. "She needs to teach that fool to fight his own battles…"

"_Alastor Moody!_" she snapped impatiently, standing boldly in the threshold to his office a hand on one hip and a fierce Amazonian look growing on her countenance.

_"Alice Longbottom…_" he spat, remaining frozen and crouched over the various reports scattered about his workspace like a mother wolf protecting its young.

"Hand it over Moody. You've had it for the past five days. Maybe it's time to give someone else a look." She said coolly, seemingly doing her best to keep a fair amount of civility in her voice.

"Or," he said in the same rigid tone "you could run along and find someone else to harass."

"Look you sorry excuse for a human be-"

"Look, Alice, sweetheart. How long have I been in this department?"

"Too long! Long enough for you to start going mad! Long enough for you to think you can bully people just because-"

"And how long have you been in this department?"

She shut her mouth and removed her hand from her hip and was clenching it and unclenching it into a white fist. She was trembling with suppressed rage and began to speak slowly.

"I've been here for five weeks."

"Then kindly go back to your cubicle and leave me alone."

"Mr. Moody? My husband and I, grunts though we may be, have a report to finish detailing our investigation of Evan Rosier." She said, her voice lowering into a dangerous growling pitch. "I would appreciate it if you-"

He put up his finger to silence her and she was about to really let loose on him when he began sifting through his papers. She relaxed, thinking he was going to hand over the proper report when he cried "That's it!"

She scowled.

"Evan Rosier!" he exclaimed with an evil glee.

"Yes?" she said, getting impatient.

"Shaklebolt and I questioned him the other day regarding the disappearance of Melody Snarks. On his left forearm, there was a mark, it was this mark." He said excitedly, ripping two pictures from two separate files to compare the images. "Yes, yes, this is it. Look!"

She took them skeptically and he stepped behind her, pointing out the similarities between the two insignias with his little finger. One was a photograph of a tattoo on the forearm of an unidentified body that had been found decapitated in a marsh and the other was a sketch drawn from the description given by the neighbor of the missing Adam Fauler. It appeared to be a snake emerging from the mouth of a skull.

Alice's smirk turned to a slight frown as she more closely reexamined the pictures.

"Maybe it's just a team logo or organizational tattoo…" she said quietly, though she clearly didn't believe her own thought.

Moody had already rushed over to his tiny closet to grab his cloak and hat when Fabian Prewett stuck his head through the door.

"Hey, can the both of you be at the Hog's Head tonight at seven o'clock?" he said quietly, clearly not wanting to be overheard.

"No, I have matters to attend to." Said Moody bluntly, throwing his hat lopsidedly on his head and snatching the pictures from Alice's hands.

"It's rather imperative that you be there." Prewett countered nervously.

"What for?" Moody snapped, putting his face an uncomfortable and foreboding distance from his.

"It's about these disappearances…" he answered.

"Are we having an after hours meeting?" Alice queried. "Who called it up?"

"It's not official…" he said, his voice growing lower and less distinct.

"A renegade job then. Brilliant. Have fun the both of you." Moody snarled, brushing past Alice in his attempt to depart his office.

Prewett latched on to Moody's arm to keep him from leaving, causing an immediate friction in the room. He shut the door quietly and Alice could feel the hairs standing up on the back of her neck. Prewett let go of Moody who took on a highly defensive posture.

"I highly suggest you reconsider Alastor."

"It's Moody. It always has been. And I have far too many leads to follow to be going to a bar for a drink, especially to discuss things about this office that are classified without the consent of the head of this department. I don't know about you, but I value my job, my pension, and-"

"The meeting has been called by Dumbledore."

"What's the Headmaster of Hogwarts got to do with anything?"

"You respect Dumbledore. He specifically requested that you be there. It wasn't my idea to have you along."

"I _do_ respect him but I don't run into his place of employment and call secret meetings to tell him how to better do his job now do I?" he countered snidely.

"Keep your voice down you idiot." Prewett snapped.

"I most certainly will not! This is my office! Neither of you belong in it and I have a few people to be questioning as of about five minutes ago!

"What if your employers had something to do with these disappearances? I can assure you that everything you have in all of those reports on your desk only skims the surface of the whole thing?" Prewett whispered desperately.

"I would say you're a paranoid conspiracy theorist." He said sarcastically, pushing past Prewett, opening the door to his office, and stomping away down the hall.

"Will you be there Alice?" Prewett asked softly.

"I'll bring Frank."


End file.
